Kukla's Korner Hockey

Category: New-Jersey-Devils

Martin Brodeur had a nice little scratch on outside of his right ankle as a reminder of a first period collsion with Chad LaRose.

That was the only mark of significance on Brodeur after another record-setting night at Prudential Center.

Brodeur made 44 saves to post his 23rd career playoff shutout in a 1-0 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes tonight in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals.

Brodeur tied Patrick Roy’s NHL record for career playoff shutouts and gave the Devils a 3-2 lead in the series with a chance to wrap it up in Game 6 Sunday in Carolina.

“It’s nice, but it’s all about winning,” Brodeur said of tying Roy’s record. “I play on a great team. I think shutouts will happen when you play so many games in the playoffs and you’re successful in the playoffs also. It’s like anything. It’s nice to be on top.”

The NHL Situation Room updates us with this… The NHL’s goalie interference rule sets a mandate to protect the goalie in the blue ice – to let the goalie do his job. In the white ice, it is a more delicate matter, including who moved into whom. The referee has one split-second look at it and it is a judgment call. The Situation Room has no video review capacity in this instance. That said, the Situation Room officials agreed with the call on the ice, that it looked like the goalie, Martin Brodeur, moved out toward the skater.

Devils captain Jamie Langenbrunner did not make the trip with the Devils to North Carolina and will miss at least the next two games of the team’s Eastern Conference quarterfinal against the Hurricanes with a suspected groin injury.

The Devils are still calling it a “lower-body injury.”

Langenbrunner was injured in the second period of a 2-1 overtime loss in Game 2 on Friday night.

“Jamie Langenbrunner will not be with us on this trip,” general manager Lou Lamoriello said. “He’ll be out these next couple of games and we’ll see how he is when we get back. But he’s not out of the first round at this point.”

“It’s going to be a day-by-day situation, but he definitely will not be on this trip.”

Venue isn’t the only thing that has turned on the Devils. So have the tables.

They head to Raleigh, where they’ve lost their last six playoff visits, having conceded home-ice advantage. They may be without their captain, as well, for Game 3 tomorrow.

Brent Sutter sounded as if the Devils may have to manage without Jamie Langenbrunner for a while, after the captain left last night’s 2-1 overtime loss to the Hurricanes in Newark with what the team called a “lower-body injury.”“We’ll see as we go along,” Sutter said of the lines he revamped because of Langenbrunner’s absence. “Hopefully, Jamie will be right back. We’ll know more [today].“Besides performing his role as captain, Langenbrunner shared the team’s goal-scoring lead since New Year’s (24) with Zach Parise.

It’s hard to imagine a future Hall of Fame goaltender who holds the record for all-time wins and sports a minuscule 1.96 goals-against average in 169 post-season games would enter any Stanley Cup playoffs as an underdog.

But that is the scenario for Martin Brodeur of the New Jersey Devils, at least in the eyes of former National Hockey League netminder Kelly Hrudey.

“I think Marty Brodeur can be a weak link,” the Hockey Night in Canada analyst told viewers on the eve of Wednesday’s Round 1 series opener between the Devils and visiting Carolina Hurricanes at 7:30 p.m. ET.

“What teams identified about three years ago in the playoffs is if you throw pucks at his feet that he has a lot of problems.

“We saw it in particular, even though New Jersey beat Tampa a couple of years ago, he gave up a ton of goals from everywhere. Tampa certainly weren’t shy [to shoot] from the corners. For whatever reason he’d have a hard time getting to his posts, so much so I thought he was injured.”

A year ago, the Devils lost all three of their home games in a five-game first-round playoff loss to the Rangers, including the series clincher.What made it tougher was having the nearly half the fans in the building be Rangers’ fans.

They’re expecting things to be different in their series against the Carolina Hurricanes. They’ll again be looking for their first ever playoff victory at Prudential Center in Game 1 on Wednesday night,.

“You work hard to get the home-ice advantage. You’ve got to take advantage of it somehow,” goaltender Martin Brodeur said. “Last year was tough for us. For whatever reason, we didn’t feel at home in the playoffs. Tomorrow we’ll feel at home for the first time in the playoffs and that’s going to feel good.

“For the guys that have been here, that was not a fun experience and deserverdly so. We didn’t play well. To a certain extent, our fans had a hard time cheering about anything when we played in this building in the playoffs last year. But this time around it will be different and, hopefully, that home feel will take us a long way.”

There was plenty of blame to go around in the Devils’ 4-1 loss to the last-place Toronto Maple Leafs tonight at Prudential Center….

When I asked Sutter after tonight’s game if he was concerned about the way Brodeur has played lately, he replied, “Just to get back to the question I get asked about whether I think about rotating goalies: Now you can see why I’m not thinking about doing it.

“There’s still things that Marty needs to work on to get himself ready (for the playoffs).”

In other words, Brodeur will start the team’s final two regular season games.

Brodeur didn’t excuse himself from blame.

“Not good enough to win a hockey game,” Brodeur said in evaluating his own play. “That’s the bottom line. When you face a goalie is playing so well and the way he played today, you just want to make sure you keep your team in the game and definitely giving them a three-goal lead, regardless of how it happens, it’s something you have to try to avoid.”

Back with the Devils after an injury to Kevin Weekes, goalie Scott Clemmensen said he was actually flattered when GM Lou Lamoriello decided not to trade him at the March 4 deadline.

Clemmemsen, who will serve as Martin Brodeur’s backup while Weekes recovers from a left knee injury, said he asked to be traded when he was sent back to Lowell (AHL) but wasn’t shocked when it didn’t happen.